Future of TV poker?

[Wayne]

Maybe it's just a fad, maybe TV poker will have a long run. What happens to the "sport" if it does make it big time?

The networks would bid for the rights to broadcast each tourney. Or maybe different "tours" would be set up. The tourneys, in order to command top dollar from the broadcasters, would want the big name stars to play in their tourneys. That leads to:

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Free entries to the "seeded" players
Apperance fees
Tourney overlays
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All of the above would be funded by the TV dollars going into the game. If poker on TV keeps growing, it will happen. I'm not sure if it is good or bad.

[thirddan]

i would like to see the audience take a more active role in televised poker...perhaps mascots dressed in giant masks that look like famous player...and when hellmuth starts his whining the audience could throw things at the mascots, perhaps Sam Grizzle and Hellmuth could have a brawl instead of a halftime show /images/graemlins/smile.gif

also, i think a lot of the big name players are already playing for "free" beacuse they are sponsored by online sites (hellmuth for UB and moneymaker for Stars etc....)

[aaronjacobg]

i know that you were probably kidding about the mascot remark but i think that fan participation is a very good topic. I think that it is very good how it is now. Yea, its fun to hear a large crowd cheering when a player makes a large raise or goes all-in but specific comments take away from the action. fan participation is good for any sport but as we have started to see with baseball and a little in hockey, some fans do not know the boundaries and interfere in the action.

Another thing, this is the only sport that i can think of that someone can be a regular fan one day and be right in the middle of the action the next day. This does not bode well for a sport that is growing at the rate of poker. I am not exactly sure how this may affect the sport as a whole for the future, but on the whole i am weary of a fan's role in sports. (the bartman incident did not help as i am a huge cubs fan) I am sure that this could be all smoke and no fire but its something to think about.

looking forward to some good replies,

jake

[george w of poker]

poker is about as much of a sport as chess is. boxing... now that is a sport.

[aaronjacobg]

thanx for the brilliant response

[daryn]

i agree with G dub on this one. it's pretty silly to call poker a sport. if poker is a sport, then tic-tac-toe is a sport.

[MrBlini]

Those soccer fans who claim to like nil-nil draws will love professional tic-tac-toe!

[jdl22]

I like some nil nil draws. Went to a Champions league match in the Bernabeu to watch Real Madrid - Manchester United and it was a fantastic nil-nil. When both teams are trying to score goals it's usually fine. The boring ones are when one team is trying to keep the score at zero and clogs up the midfield and defence.

Tic-Tac-Toe is a trivial game. I don't think poker is a sport either, but at least in Poker there are situations where it is not obvious to everyone what the 100% perfectly correct play is.

Of course you guys were both kidding but what the hell.

[TylerD]

[ QUOTE ]
where it is not obvious to everyone what the 100% perfectly correct play is.


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I don't think there is ever a 100% perfectly correct play.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think there is ever a 100% perfectly correct play.

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How about you hold A /images/graemlins/club.gif K /images/graemlins/club.gif in a NL tournament. Flop comes Q /images/graemlins/club.gif J /images/graemlins/club.gif T /images/graemlins/club.gif, and your opponents bets all-in. I think there is a 100% perfect play here. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I tend to think that there are often optimal plays for any given situation. (I don't know if optimal means the same thing as 100% perfectly correct.) But, many times it is not possible for a human being to figure out the optimal play because the variables that go into this are too complicated to keep track of precisely. (Of course, when there is a close decision in poker, the nice thing is that in the long run the decision won't matter very much compared to finding the optimal play when it is *much* better than any other line of play.) Also, one can make an optimal play and still have it work out badly in the short run. If you're heads-up in a tournament against someone who is going all-in with every hand, then you are right to call him with KK. If he has AA this time and you lose, or if he has 72 but the flop comes 777, then that is bad luck. I would still consider the play to be 100% perfectly correct, in the sense that any other play is clearly wrong (in the long run).

However, that paragraph assumes that you know all the other variables in question, including how the other person thinks and what his strategy to the game is. In reality, you only have partial knowledge of this, so many times your judgment of the optimal play will differ from the optimal play you would have decided upon if you knew his strategy and had time to work out all the relevant calculations (with the help of a computer presumably!). So in terms of a practical statement about the at-the-table game of poker that actually comes, I tend to agree that there often isn't a 100% perfectly correct play.

[TylerD]

[ QUOTE ]
How about you hold A K in a NL tournament. Flop comes Q J T , and your opponents bets all-in. I think there is a 100% perfect play here.

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Not always.

[neotope]

So when flopping a Royal Flush it is not always correct to call an all in?

Hmm....

[TylerD]

Refer to "Tournament Poker for advanced players" page 80. If the guy who goes all-in is the short stack and you have the chip lead it is not always correct to knock out the short-stack.

[D.H.]

I don't have the book. Could you explain this in more detail?

[Gewurtztraminer]

The idea is that in certain bubble situations where people are playing too tight, you can greatly increase your stack size by steal raising on virtually every hand.

Once someone goes out, the gravy train ends and you will get called, so you gain more tourney chips by not knocking someone out, and preserving your steal-raise situation.

Gewürtztraminer

[D.H.]

Wow, yea I guess that's why it goes in the advanced book. Would love to hear the commentary if that happened in a TV broadcast. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

But seriously, who of you "advanced" players would feel comfortable actually doing this in a tourney? Just curious...

[sweetjazz]

What about if you're playing a NL cash game? Can you think of a circumstance where it might +EV not to call an all-in when you flop a royal flush?

(I ask in seriousness. I imagine the situation would have to be a bit more contrived than for a tournament, but maybe someone can propose a psychological aspect. The closest I can come up with is that you're against a bad player who has just announced "If I can make it without going bust until 5:00, then I'll rebuy x amount of $" and it's 4:58, and the pot is so small, that you figure you'll make more money by having him rebuy. You have to assume that he's trustworthy, that he's going to rebuy significantly more than what's in the pot, etc. Can anyone come up with something less hokie?)

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow, yea I guess that's why it goes in the advanced book. Would love to hear the commentary if that happened in a TV broadcast. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

But seriously, who of you "advanced" players would feel comfortable actually doing this in a tourney? Just curious...

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Well, this wouldn't happen in a TV broadcast because all of those players are already in the money, so there's no bubble.

Fossilman has described using this strategy a number of times, and specifically talked about folding the BB to an all in raise for something like 1.5 times the BB just to keep the bubble going.

[JustPlayingSmart]

[ QUOTE ]
What about if you're playing a NL cash game? Can you think of a circumstance where it might +EV not to call an all-in when you flop a royal flush?


[/ QUOTE ]

You flop a royal flush against an extremely weak opponent. The opponent is so weak that all of the other players at the table would leave the game if he busted. You are substantially better than the other players, so much so that you have a huge edge if the game keeps going. In addition, some of the other players have a lot more on the table than the weak player, so the reward for busting him would be trivial compared to busting one of the those layers.

[D.H.]

[ QUOTE ]
You flop a royal flush against an extremely weak opponent. The opponent is so weak that all of the other players at the table would leave the game if he busted. You are substantially better than the other players...

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If we forget about the Royal Flush for a while. Would a situation like this mean that you would lay down several winning hands just to keep this weak guy in the game. Would you actually try to help him winning pots, "giving" him money, just to keep him in the game?

[MrBlini]

Reuben &amp; Ciaffone give an example of laying down the royal in Pot-Limit and No-Limit Poker. If you own the joint and are profiting from the rakes, you may want to keep it to yourself that you've made such an unlikely hand.

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
Fossilman has described using this strategy a number of times, and specifically talked about folding the BB to an all in raise for something like 1.5 times the BB just to keep the bubble going.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I think he's said that he's done it with big pairs, that he was almost certain to be a big favorite with.